Paper ID #13504 Wireless Communication Testbed and Tools for Authentic STEM Learning Vuk Marojevic, Virginia Tech Vuk Marojevic graduated from University of Hannover (MS), Germany, and Polytechnic University of Catalonia (PhD), Spain, both in electrical engineering. He joined Wireless@Virginia Tech in Summer 2013 as a Research Associate. His research interests are in software-defined radio technologies with ap- plication to 4G/5G cellular, UAV, and spectrum sharing, among others. Dr. Marojevic has been instructor of undergraduate and graduate level classes at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain, and Virginia Tech. Dr. Richard M. Goff, Virginia Tech Department of Engineering Education Richard M. Goff is a former aircraft structural test engineer for the Navy, Peace Corps Volunteer, and com- puter entrepreneur; he holds a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering, and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering Education at Virginia Tech. Richard has been teaching and engaging in research in multidisciplinary engineering design education for over eighteen years. Dr. Goff is the recipient of several university teaching awards, outreach awards, and best paper awards. His passion is creating engaging learning environments by bringing useful research results and industry practices into the classroom as well as using design research results to inform engineering practice. Dr. Carl B Dietrich P.E., Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Virginia Tech A licensed Professional Engineer in Virginia, Carl Dietrich earned a BS EE degree from Texas A&M University, and MS EE and PhD EE degrees from Virginia Tech. He has taught courses in software defined radio, communications systems, electronics, and electromagnetic fields. He has also taught short courses on software defined radio since 2007, covering fundamental concepts and enabling technologies in addition to the use of open source software to develop and run SDR applications. In addition, Dr. Dietrich has performed and directed research in the areas of cognitive radio, software defined radio (SDR), multi-antenna systems, and radio wave propagation, and has authored or co-authored more than 50 peer- reviewed journal and conference papers. He has worked at Virginia Tech, Bell Northern Research, and the Defense Information Systems Agency. He has served as chair of the Wireless Innovation Forum’s Educational Special Interest Group, is a member of ASEE and Eta Kappa Nu, Senior Member of IEEE, and an Extra class amateur radio operator. Dr. Taeyoung Yang, Virginia Tech Taeyoung Yang received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from Virginia Tech in 2003 and 2012, respectively. He received B.S. and M.S. degrees in electronic engineering from Sung-Kyun- Kwan University, South Korea, in 1997 and 1999, respectively. He is currently a Research Scientist with the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Virginia Tech. Dr. Yang has strong theoretical background on radiation physics, co-site interference, and size-performance limits of wireless devices. Along with the theoretical background, he also has extensive hands-on experience in antennas, RF, sensors, and measurements. His current research emphasis is on developing core technolo- gies including generalized fundamental limit theory on antenna size and performance, spectrum sharing and management, cognitive wireless infrastructure, software-defined radio user equipment, and mission- critical cloud services. Dr. Christian W. Hearn, Weber State University Dr. Hearn is an Assistant Professor in the College of Applied Science and Technology at Weber State University. He received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech. He was a member of the Virginia Tech Antenna Group during his plan of study. Before returning to graduate school, Mr. Hearn was a mechanical engineer for the Naval Surface Warfare Center. He is a licensed mechanical engineer in the state of Virginia. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2015 Paper ID #13504 Dr. Nicholas F Polys, Virginia Tech Advanced Research Computing Nicholas F. Polys is Director of Visual Computing with Virginia Tech Research Computing Group and Affiliate Research Professor in the Department of Computer Science. He has developed interactive 3D graphic content and systems for over 15 years. His research interests lie at the center of graphics and Hu- man Computer Interaction: the intersection of visualization, virtual environments, and perception. After his undergraduate research in Cognitive Science at Vassar College (1996), he jumped into the networked information space of the WWW developing audio, visual, and 3D assets and software. His doctoral work at Virginia Tech (2006) examined perceptual cues and layout behaviors for Information-Rich Virtual En- vironments for desktop to immersive platforms. He is a member of ACM, IEEE Computer Society, and the Web3D Consortium. He is a co-author of the international standard (ISO) Extensible 3D (X3D), elected Director and President of the Web3D Consor- tium, and Chair of the Web3D User Interface Working Group. Prof. R. Michael Buehrer, Virginia Tech Dr. R. Michael Buehrer joined Virginia Tech from Bell Labs as an Assistant Professor with the Bradley Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2001. He is currently a Professor of Electrical Engineering and is the director of Wireless @ Virginia Tech, a comprehensive research group focusing on wireless communications. During 2009 Dr. Buehrer was a visiting researcher at the Laboratory for Telecommunication Sciences (LTS) a federal research lab which focuses on telecommunication challenges for national defense. While at LTS, his research focus was in the area of cognitive radio with a particular emphasis on statistical learning techniques. His current research interests include geolocation, position location networks, iterative receiver design, dynamic spectrum sharing, cognitive radio, communication theory, Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) communications, intelligent antenna techniques, Ultra Wideband, spread spectrum, interference avoid- ance, and propagation modeling. His work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Office of Naval Research, and several industrial sponsors. Dr. Buehrer has authored or co-authored over 50 journal and approximately 125 conference papers and holds 11 patents in the area of wireless communications. In 2010 he was co-recipient of the Fred W. Eller- sick MILCOM Award for the best paper in the unclassified technical program. He is currently a Senior Member of IEEE, and an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Communications and IEEE Wireless Communications Letters. He was formerly an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Vehicular Tech- nologies, IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, and IEEE Transactions on Education. In 2003 he was named Outstanding New Assistant Professor by the Vir- ginia Tech College of Engineering and in 2014 Dr. Buehrer won the Virginia Tech College of Engineering Award for Teaching Excellence. c American Society for Engineering Education, 2015 Wireless Communication Testbed and Tools for Authentic STEM Learning Abstract We propose a novel educational gamification approach that employs and reinforces otherwise- abstract concepts currently taught in graduate-level courses to become a standard part of under- graduate communications courses in the future. In particular, we develop software tools that vis- ually demonstrate relevant wireless communications parameters and processes, including those already taught in undergraduate communications courses (e.g., power, coding rate, modulation type, data rate and bandwidth) to students in an interactive way. We exploit our Internet- accessible wireless communication testbed CORNET to enable students to experience wireless communication challenges and learn different solutions in realistic environments via an ordinary web browser. This paper presents our approach to authentic STEM learning and compares it with other past and ongoing initiatives. We conclude that there is a gap of practical teaching tools and methods for educating students as well as radio engineers and researchers about new trends in wireless communications with a focus on spectrum sharing. 1 Introduction Wireless communications research is investigating how to make better use of the radio frequency (RF) spectrum. Increasing the throughput per unit bandwidth (spectral efficiency) is a popular choice that is continuously improved and employed in practice. Reusing frequency bands oppor- tunistically (dynamic spectrum access or DSA) is still in the research phase, but is likely to make its transition to practice in the near future based on the currently ongoing license auctions for the AWS-3 and other bands in the United States. These techniques are covered in graduate-level electrical engineering classes, but cannot easily be introduced to undergraduate students. Undergraduate engineering students struggle with the basic concepts in wireless communications. We therefore propose the development of visualiza- tion and gamification tools to be used in undergraduate courses. Gamification refers to the use of game design elements in non-game contexts, products, and services1,2. Gamification is also con- sidered a useful tool to motivate and enhance learning. To apply gamification to educate about basic and modern wireless communications principles,